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Monroe County Animal Control in Forsyth is calling for help. The shelter is more than full, and unless some of the dogs and puppies are adopted or rescued, many will be killed in the morning.

Shelter staff hold onto the dogs as long as possible, but when the shelter is full more room has to be made for new arrivals.

Like most government shelters, Monroe County Animal Control is mandated to pick up lost, stray or injured dogs and dogs involved in criminal cases.

The shelter also picks up owner-surrendered dogs, and takes in dogs brought to the shelter by residents.

Because the law requires the shelter to keep certain categories of dogs for a specific number of days, when the shelter gets full, dogs that do not fall in those categories, such as owner-surrenders, must be adopted, rescued or killed to make room.

A bus driver in Monroe County got a huge surprise while driving along East Harzell Lane last week: a laundry basket filled with puppies in the middle of the road.

The bus driver narrowly avoided running over the basket and called authorities. The Sheriff's Department notified Monroe County Animal Control, and the puppies were rescued.

Although at first believed to be about four weeks old, Dr. Caldwell examined the puppies and said they were closer to about six to eight weeks old, according to Monroe County Animal Shelter staff.

The puppies, four female and one male, may be transferred to Atlanta Humane Society, if donations come in to help pay for initial vetting. If not, the pups can be adopted through the shelter and Save A Pet.

Anyone with information on the vehicle or person(s) who dumped these puppies where they would almost certainly be killed should call the Monroe County Sheriff's Department.

Monroe County's small animal shelter fills up quickly, as most government-run shelters do. Animal Control picks up lost, stray and abandoned dogs for the entire county.

The dogs are held as long as possible at the shelter, but need to find homes as quickly as possible, or be reclaimed by their owners.

All adoptions go through Save A Pet rescue in Forsyth. You can call them at 478-994-7976.

Monroe County Animal Control shelter is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. The shelter, at 157 L. Cary Bittick Drive in Forsyth, is closed on some holidays.

If your dog is lost, you should go to the shelter in person to see if it is there. What looks like a Labrador retriever mix to you may look like a pitbull mix to the staff, so they may not recognize your pet.

Two major donors have come forward to help pay the $20 per pet fee for spay/neuter surgery at the mobile vet clinic coming to GEICO in February.

Thanks to a $300 donation from Heart of Georgia Humane Society and a $200 donation from Anna Roberts and Rivoli Realty, plus help from other donors, the fee for 37 of the spay/neuter surgeries are covered.

Cost for the surgery, plus a microchip and rabies shot, is only $20 per pet. The clinic is designed to help senior citizens and low-income residents get their pets "fixed" to stop unwanted litters of puppies and kittens from flooding Macon Animal Control constantly. Many of these unwanted babies die because no homes can be found in time to save them.

Local businessman Mallory Jones may have started a trend when he donated $750 earlier this month to prepay the $75 adoption fee for 10 lucky animals at Macon Animal Control. (See that story here)

All 10 prepaid fees were used quickly, which not only helped the animals go to new homes, but helped Animal Control avoid killing to relieve overcrowding.

As all municipal shelters do, Macon Animal Control's shelter quickly filled back up. Sadly, a few dogs were euthanized this week. More were slated to die, but got a last-minute reprieve in the form of Tom Wagoner, who dropped by the shelter this week with a $750 donation of his own.

That donation prepays the adoption fee for 10 more dogs and cats to go to good homes.

But just because the adoption is "free," cautions Halie White of FURever Friends Humane Society in Gray, doesn't mean the pet is "free."